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One of the reasons when there was a topic about changing the point system. Give some more points to music was a suggestion. But, with so many artsy instructors, judges, corps mgmt., etc. the odds of it happening are very slim.

Being in Utah, I've been able to see a bit of what the Battalion has been doing. They had a booth at every single marching band competition in Utah. They're definitely for real. Their first "experience" camp had great turnout and as I understand was quite successful for a startup corps.

Yes, but this does not sound like a modern show (i.e. a chop-n-bop highlight reel of a show). This is sounding more like an old-school show musically. The typical modern DCI show does not let musical ideas develop. This may be a show in today's modern age, but it is not sounding like a typical DCI show as of late.I thank Cadets for this and can't wait to see the finished product!

Actual MUSIC!!!!!! Loving it.

Even more, the 'lowly' members of the general audience have bemoaned this development for MANY years. Forget the moms, dads, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc., they're good with all of it, whatever it is. The challenge is enthralling the other faces in the crowd. I did see great promise in 2014 performances, however. The activity is moving toward a better balance. I sincerely hope the past season's productions were not merely a brief aberration. Answer coming soon!

There are many reasons for the current trends in brass arranging. Chiefly: impatience by visual, percussion and color guard judges and writers, who think of their own compartmentalized piece of the puzzle rather than allowing the music to live and breathe. We've been hijacked by WGI pacing, and designed judging sheets that reward frantic moods and over-writing. It's all VERY coordinated and well-thought-out on paper. In performance? It becomes mangled and generally meaningless musically. I won't speak for all arrangers. Some just aren't very good. Some are. Some do not assert themselves, while others do. Some are more concerned about keeping their gig, rather than making music. And sometimes, speaking up in defense of music isn't a popular thing for a younger generation of writers and teachers who didn't grow up listening patiently and thoughtfully. And sometimes they don't care. It's a paycheck and someone else is responsible for the show -- so they cash the check, and move on because their voice was drowned out a long time ago. Lots of reasons. I'm sure there are more. These are my particular views on the subject. Myself? I like music, but rarely like drum corps anymore. Love the performance levels. Truly over the "every 30 seconds needs an impact" school of thought, and the "cheats" used to achieve "clarity" and the "checklist" mentality of the design process. Double tonguing? Check. 192 bpm? Check. High sticking and a leg kick? Check. Gratuitous 16th note run living outside the musical idea? Check. Blah. Chuck

Agogo, I find your post to be most intriguing. I agree with you almost whole-heartedly. However, I wouldn't entirely lay the blame at the feet of the arrangers. Rather, I think (surmise?) that it might rather be an indication of where we've arrived as a general society (and I say "general" as a disclaimer against rendering everyone in any kind of "All" category). We've become a "highlight" society, whether it be through a diminishing of attention ability, or because we don't have the time to appreciate a slower, inexorable build to an eventual climax. We seem to need the ESPN "Top Ten Plays" of the day to satisfy our thirst in the athletic arena; we scan MSN news (and many others) to inform ourselves of the day's events. Televison news is little more than "headlines" and sound-bites...not the story-driven news stories that many of us recall from our pasts. This has carried over to Drum Corps. If I am not mistaken, Madison's rendition of "Malaguena" of 1988 which absolutely floored a good many people took nearly 6 minutes (somewhere around 5:45 or so, If I recall) -- more than half the time now allotted for a full show. Would that be nearly as musically effective a selection in 2014 or 2015 as it was in 1988? I'm not sure, but I would venture a guess that it wouldn't. Instead of a series of "semi-high points" leading to a final huge climax, we seem to need a HUGE hit every couple of minutes And there are two problems with this: first, with every HUGE hit, we run the risk of incrementally depriving the full strength of the final climatic event; second, every climax doesn't necessarily need to be huge. Sometimes, a fully-satisfying "Ahhhhh" moment can serve as the climax -- sort of a "Yesssss...I GET it" kind of moment. It all comes down to being a journey with an eventual, and satisfying, resolution. And in the very best of circumstances, it can be of both worlds. Maybe that is, subconsciously, why the Bluecoats' "pitch bend" moment was so intriguing this past year -- not because it was strange or innovative (which it was, in many ways), but because it served as a culminating "climax" built from all that came before it. When all is said and done, arrangers are at the mercy of the thinking of the day, and what will maintain interest -- say nothing of fitting their artistic mind's-eye with the artistic mind's-eye of their colleagues on the Corps staff. This might be said of music of the past which has been transferred to the field. Does a Corps (or its' arranger) have the same amount of time to build "Nimrod" from Elgar's "Enigma Variations" to its' climax? Does an arranger have the time to build Barber's "Adagio" in the same way that Barber himself did? Of course not. That is not the fault of the arranger. It is more a matter simply emanating from fitting multiple musical selections into an 11 minute program. However, I DO agree with you. The "just the highlights, Ma'am" school of thought does often leave me unsatisfied as well. And I think I can safely guess that you and I are not alone in this regard.

7th Regiment -- The Labyrinth Music Selections: -TBA Coastal Surge -- Cast Into Darkness Music Selections: -TBA Colombians -- 1942 Music Selections: -(Frederic Chopin) -(Ludwig Van Beethoven) -(Gabriel Faure) Eruption -- Inferno Music Selections: -TBA Genesis -- Phantom of the Opera Music Selections: - "Phantom of the Opera" (Andrew Lloyd Webber) Gold -- Pop Star Music Selections: -TBA Guardians -- Light of Gold Music Selections: -"Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" (Johann Sebastian Bach) -"Summer, from The Four Seasons" (Antonio Vivaldi) -"Lux Aurumque" (Eric Whitacre) -"Requiem: II. Tuba Mirum" (Giuseppe Verdi) -"Grand Piano, Part II: On the Dominant Divide" (John Adams) Incognito -- Planet Incognito Music Selections: -"World of Incognitians" (Tony T Nguyen) -"Mars" (Gustav Holst) -"Jupiter" (Gustav Holst) Music City Drum Corps -- The Planets Music Selections: -"The Planets" (Gustav Holst) Racine Scouts -- Behind the Brush Strokes Music Selections: -(Don Mclean, Manuel De Falla, Eric Morales, and Phillip Glass) Raiders -- Midnight Music Selections: -(Rumored) "Clair de Lune" (Claude Debussy) Spartans -- Spartans...At the Gates! Music Selections: -TBA Vanguard Cadets -- On Cloud Nine Music Selections: -"Life" (Marc Streitenfeld) More to be added as they're announced.

We have 4 matching OLDS G Contra Bass horns for sale that have Kanstul three valve conversion kits that were professionally installed. The Kanstul 3 valve conversion kits were originally designed to convert these specific horns, and were then later adapted for use on Kings and others. These horns would be perfect for a smaller corps, alumni corps, parade corps, etc. that are looking to have a matching, tunable set of 3 valve horns in a more manageable size than the super mags and the like. These horns are in pretty good shape for their age, but could use a good cleaning and some minor cosmetic work. However, they are ready to go and playable now. We are asking for $4400.00 for the set of 4, plus shipping, (which could be costly) Pick up would be great, a halfway meeting if reasonable is not out of the question.

The DCE European Championships can count on an impressive list of participants next year. Alongside familiar names, Drum Corps Europe will also welcome a number of new participants in 2015. 37th Kingswood from Bristol, Blue Diamonds from Nienhagen, Cadence from Surrey and Berkshire, and Revolution from Queensbury will be making their first trip to the […] ... Read the rest of the article here - http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2014/12/impressive-names-at-2015-dce-european-championships/

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed this trend, but I was watching the "Best DCI Moments of 2012" recently, and I was struck by the surprising lack of cohesion in many of the brass arrangements. It's almost as if a lot of the shows are just "hit - transition - hit - transition - hit - transition - hit" in structure. I'm not saying that they don't contain complete musical ideas, but the arrangers are being fairly unoriginal and cliche'd. I also think that they're not being patient with the music, allowing it room to breathe and stretch its limbs. I'm primarily a brass person, so I can't really comment on pit and battery arrangements, but I have a fair amount of experience with music arranging and transcription; what I've seen of good arrangements has taught me that there are many intermediate shades between loud/bombastic and quiet/subtle. Yet these arrangers just can't grasp that. And what's really puzzling is that many of these arrangers have proven themselves to be skilled in those respects - adding variety to music and using orchestrational techniques to bring interest and meaning to the music. For example, Michael Klesch, currently with Crown and a few others, arranged brilliantly for Garfield in 1985 and 1987 ('85 is my favourite arrangement for drum corps ever), preserving the source music's spirit and vitality while compressing them into 13 and 11 minutes respectively. Scott Boerma, still with Scouts after all these years, really brought out the aggression of Madison's hornline, while still making it musical and keeping the integrity of the sources. Is it that they and the many other arrangers working today just don't care? Or is it that they must bow to the will of the visual team and stretch and shape their music to rigidly fit the drill and guard? If any of you can shed some light on this phenomenon, I'd appreciate it.

Backing up Bob Costas on Super Bowl pre-game show.

Music teachers don't make great music. They make great musicians. I believe this is at the heart of this issue. While the arrangers are certainly capable of producing works of professional depth and subtlety, this activity is led by teachers, not arrangers. And by led, I mean the directors, instructors and judges are all teachers, not music critics, composers, designers or arrangers. Last year George Hopkins said their goals were, in order: 1. Challenge the members, 2. Entertain the audience, and 3. Impress the judges [my wording]. I believe these values are fairly consistent across DCI. Is this inconsistent with the result? Are they arranging more for the judges than for the audience or students? It does seem that way, but I think these teachers may feel that it's so difficult to express a subtle mood, and to transition from one mood to another, that they have rewarded more moods and transitions over more time expanding on each mood. I'm not saying that's right - I'm saying they do it because they believe it's better education. Perhaps they feel that the kids have the rest of the school year to play it straight. I don't know the reasoning, but I think the intent is sound and since they are by and large teachers the rest of the year, they may have some experience that tells them this is the way to go. I do think the pendulum is swinging back slightly. The important thing about Bluecoats show isn't the pitch bend, it's Hymn of Axciom. They played that piece entirely. All 3+whatever minutes pretty much straight. BD did something interesting; they played the Nino Rota theme from La Strada several times over the course of the show so that while it was broken up, at least the corps had a chance to explore that one theme more fully. And in both cases the audience had one key melodic idea to anchor the show on the way home. Almost like the old days. They got great audience response. And they came in first and second. So maybe we will see a trend toward developing one idea more fully at some point, and cramming as many statements into the rest of the show as possible as they do now. I would like to see this trend continue, more ABABCABC rather than ABC-next piece, but I am also impressed by these corps ability to turn on a dime emotionally.

It's ironic that a WC corps doesn't actually need that much local interest (although I think they do benefit greatly from it). The OC corps need local support to move up, and eventually to get to the point where they could actually relocate if they wanted to. So the lesson is: If you love your drum corps, set it free. If it comes back to you .. (wait, what am I drinking?)

Yeah according to one of the staff members, they have 95% of the music so far.

They look like they are having a lot of fun, too! Great exposure for The Academy and the drum corps activity!

In all seriousness, if they continue to work as hard and grow at the rate they are, I could see them becoming a World Class candidate within several years of entering OC. Maybe even sooner rather than later.

Chuck, I'll see your Lenny and raise with Carlos Kleiber... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sw97NzvvsE Can't really go wrong with either...

What THE f$%k?!?! https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152699228651911&set=vb.507456910&type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152699173581911&set=vb.507456910&type=2&theater

It wasn't even possible in 2002. It WOULD be possible if that's what we wanted as an activity. We're too worried about color guard and percussion staffs leaving, and about tempos and cookie cutter pacing. So we bow and gaze at our navels, and wait for the pendulum to swing back. It's a long wait. We shall see. Not that I want to see it again -- but just the idea that certain things are no longer in the table because they don't meet the "checklist" requirements is somewhat lacking in creative energy.

either - or neither - nor

Agreed. Perhaps in an effort to create effect, there is a continually evolving program to keep judges engaged. We need fast, ballad, a section to highlight percussion, another for guard...

The weather has been nice here too; unusually so? We're back to cold and snow now yet the days are getting longer with more sun. I'm into the light.

So looking forward to the 2015 DCI season. Just like every season. Sending a nice check in support of our great corps. As little as it might be, I sure hope it helps. The excitement is building here in Madison, can't wait to see the next level. Go Madison Scouts!

The Skyliners Drum & Bugle Corps is proud to announce the Percussion Staff for the 2015 season. With Percussion Arranger Eric Boylan returning to the Skyliners for a second year to arrange and design their 2015 percussion show, the Skyliners promise another entertaining and crowd pleasing show! The Skyliners are excited to welcome Thomas Siegfried […] ... Read the rest of the article here - http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2015/01/skyliners-names-tom-siegfried-percussion-caption-head/

Leadership is not just a title: it is a way of thinking, an attitude. It is an honor and a privilege to lead. Gold Drum & Bugle Corps is proud to announce our 2015 Drum Majors! “I’m very excited to be returning to gold and stepping onto the podium as head drum major for 2015. […] ... Read the rest of the article here - http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2015/01/gold-announces-2015-drum-major/

Going to TMEA? SO ARE WE!!!! Come by and visit booth 3230 in the main hall during the convention and see all the amazing things being developed at Ultimate Drill Book and visit with the Genesis family! It will be a guaranteed party!!!! Read the rest of the article here. ... Read the rest of the article here - http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2015/01/genesis-at-2015-tmea-conference/

YES! I know I've said it before, but I 100% appreciate how candid Hop & his design staff are in the off-season when it comes to show design. They really let their fans in on the process more than any other corps by A LOT, even if the process means "we have a great idea & our show next summer is X" only to come back in a few months and say, "we changed our minds, simplified the vision, and instead are totally going in a different direction." Meaning, I appreciate their openness, warts & all (and I still really want to see a Bernstein show that mashes-up On The Waterfront, WSS, and whatever else Cadets' original ideas were for their 75th Anniversary show).

Whatever; that same study was done MUCH better in the 80's (or insert older era of obvious superior quality here)

Or where you can actually use an emoticon provided by the board like this one: instead of the 1990's version of :P. And what do you mean by "everything"? Are you saying that everything said by everyone (or EVERYONE) here is over-analyzed? I've seen lots of posts where comments are both over-analyzed AND taken the wrong way, so I'm certain that you're just here to insult people who love to talk about drum corps. In fact, I saw a study once here that suggested...

I have a DCP app on my iPhone; had it for years. It would let you select the forum you wished to visit and then open the forum in Safari. Yesterday, it stopped working and just displays a 404 server not found error. Any ideas? Is this a 3rd party app that is no longer supported by its developer? Thanks

Hey dude, I just made the corps for the 2015 season on Euphonium. It took me four years, four auditions, and three years with Pacific Crest before I finally made the corps. Needless to say, it's pretty tough, and it only gets more cut throat if you get invited to the January camp with a callback. Anyway, make sure you march SOMEWHERE this summer, take some dance classes like ballet and modern, and practice your horn every day for an hour at least. More if possible. You should definitely be taking private lessons too if you aren't already and start practicing the audition packet from the day it becomes available!

Hello everybody! 2015 will be my second summer with Santa Clara. I'm looking forward to another great summer! A little bit about me: I am a tuba performance major, and I am very involved in all the music ensembles at my university (brass quintet, jazz, symphony, wind ensemble, pep bands, etc.). I grew up in central California, and I'm currently a college student scraping by. If you're interested in sponsoring me for this summer contact me at: daniellarsene9@gmail.com Or to directly go to my gofundme page: http://www.gofundme.com/kc0bnc

Though I appreciate your support for 10 and 11, I feel like it's a big mistake to say that 13 and 14 weren't huge years for the corps and big steps forward. 2014 especially...sure the concept wasn't "cutting edge," but it saw a traditional Troopers show done in a way that was very up-to-date. Its set them up for what they want to do next.

"... contribute nothing to the activity" Wow. Really? There isn't a corps in that activity that fit's this description. At least not from my foxhole, anyway.

Hah. Thanks. Was replying to this - 2013 - Also Sprach Zarathustra, 2012 - Bela and Bird in Bb, 2010 - La Suerte de los Tontos, 2009 - Happy Days are Here Again, 2008 - Adagio from Spartacus, 2007 - Pegasus, 2005 - Dancer in the Dark, 2003 - Concerto de Aranjuez. This has actually been a pretty kind millenium to shows with previously-used music. Mike

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Please stop. Despite many misconceptions about the public nature of a 501c3 organization, there is no obligation what-so-ever on DCI's part to bend over and "spread 'em!" for Mr. Blair. They checked the box that says they'll provide a copy of the 990's to anyone who asks. The are not required to discuss anything else about their business with any member of the public. I'll be very disappointed if Dan A or any of his staff spend more than 10 minutes "worrying" about this or "taking it seriously" in any way. IMO they should make a call to the accountant - YAWN - and go back to the planning of making next year's tour even better than this year's. Even the title of this thread shows that he's no threat what-so-ever in costing DCI money defending themselves. And I haven't even yet read his FB posts.

Gah. Why are old people always so cranky about absurd nonsense like this? Doesn't John Blair have something better to do with his time, like complain to his city council about the types of trees they used in the newest park? Write angry op-ed columns to the local paper about potholes?

Ideally, no, but bias is very hard to eliminate. I don't consider myself racist, sexist, or elitist, but I look at my friends and they are all a lot like me :)

This comes up every year. Legally, any corps can set up purely arbitrary membership requirements. They could require that all members have six fingers on their left hand if they wanted to. They can change these requirements at any time. If someone wanted to challenge this, there would be a number of legal hurdles. They would have to establish standing to bring suit, that they suffered a real injury as a result of the policy, and so forth. If successful, the best a plaintiff could do is win the right to audition. The corps could then exclude her based on merit and there would be very little recourse. The legal expenses would run into tens of thousands (unless some lawyer accepted the case pro bono.) The corps could bring a countersuit for frivolous litigation. It just wouldn't be worth it. Bottom line: there is no law that says you get to march drum corps. There is certainly no law that says you have a right to march a particular drum corps. There are laws that protect private groups right to exclusive membership. "Freedom of association." BTW, there have been many All-Girl corps in the past. Also, All-African-American drum corps. CMCC Warriors. I know for a fact that the Cavaliers did not have an African-American member until the mid to late 60s. Imagine an All-White corps. Or a corps that excluded homosexuals. That might get some lawyers juices going. Regarding the "guest performer" I'm a Madison alum and I think she was awesome and definitely earned the right to call herself a Madison Scout.

For the same reason that no one should be asking why Dairy Queen isn't selling motorcycles along with Dilly Bars. Adding a new product would add nothing to the basic formula that Dairy Queen has worked with for the last umpteen decades. Cavaliers and Madison "sell" their identity as all-male corps. That's a huge part of their appeal both to the prospective members and to audiences. It informs their programming choices in very positve ways. Changing that identity would be akin to asking them to completely lose the successful business identities they've formed for themselves over the years, and in pursuit of what? Becoming just like every one else?

It's a strong argument. The fact that Cavaliers and Scout overcame that disadvantage is commendable. But to be honest, the VFW and AL championships are less germane to the discussion, as it was a totally different era, one where there were many more all-male corps. What they are doing now, in this current era, puts them at a competitive disadvantage. It's just one they have been able to overcome most of the time, which is really impressive in and of itself. You guys seem to think I'm bagging on Cavies and Scouts. I'm not, at all. It's no different than BYU or Stanford or Notre Dame Football...they have additional restrictions on the pool of recruits, and most of the time, they overcome those self-imposed restrictions. If anything, Cavaliers and Scouts are even more impressive.

I dislike these threads, not because I think the topic should be off limits, but because most of the arguments make no sense. Without making a case one way or the other, let me address a couple of arguments that have been stated repeatedly here. First, claiming "tradition" is a poor argument in favor of the legitimacy of a practice. There are plenty of "traditions" from the past (or from other cultures) that we all would rightly disapprove of today. (Note: I'm not making a judgment here about exclusion of women from a particular drum corps, just noting that there do exist practices once called "traditions" that we would shun today.) Second, the technical legality of a practice is also not an argument in favor of the rightness or soundness of a practice. There are plenty of things that are legal to do, but that are unsavory, immoral, or unethical. (Note: again, I'm not claiming here that excluding women is any of the above negative adjectives, just making the claim that notional practices exist that we would condemn as immoral, and yet would be found to be legal in a court of law.) Perhaps tradition and legality is enough. As pointed out, there are other options for women interested in drum corps, just fewer options than for men. If that's appealing as an argument, I would submit then that Cavies and Madison do benefit somewhat in terms of acceptance of exclusion in that they represent less than 10% of the World Class corps. There are 21 other world class corps who do accept women. But if we had more male-only corps, is there a ratio at which their exclusion of women *does* become unfair? If half of all corps excluded women, would that be acceptable? 90%? All but one? What about if the Cadets and Blue Devils were also male-only? Would the fact that the vast majority of DCI championships had gone to male-only corps make the practice unacceptable, even if the other corps all accepted women? Finally, I'm curious: does anyone have an argument that doesn't appeal to tradition or legality in favor of exclusion of women from these two corps? And as a postscript, if any of the above sounds angry or antagonistic, I apologize. I'm wishy washy on this issue myself, and I'm genuinely curious about what other people think.

Becky Woods was sooo cool though!

It's hard for an outside observer to get a real feel of how good a drum major is, at least in my opinion, based on 90% of a DM's responsibilies never make the field. That being said, James Gulke (sp?) from the mid 90s Blue Devils must've been doing something right... dude left with a fistful of rings. From a competitive standpoint, he's got to be one of the most prolific drum majors in recent times.

My thoughts (even though I only marched 1991) is that 1992's show was a much more well rounded show which always makes a particular section like the drum line better. 1991 was cleaner but 1992 was more well rounded. And the pit in 1992 was lightyears better than 1991 (did I just say that?)

Another little known fact: The Question Mark was an idea of one of the members. He brought it up to one of the drill guys, and the next thing we knew it was in the show. Of course, this was after it was decided that 1993 would be Songs for Planet Earth Part 2 and the whole trilogy concept was born. Closing set of 1992 would be the opening set of 1993, closing set of 1993 would be the opening set of 1994. And so it was.

I went through high school playing an old, ancient t-bone that came from the want ads.....it was matte silver outside and a brass bell, I figure the thing was pretty old, like the 30s or 40s, I guess, can't remember the brand, the case was leather with a faded mortuary-purple velvet lining that smelled pretty funky, oh, and no slide lock nor would the slide section lock to the bell section. Xmen horns looked cool....mine looked, well, old. RON HOUSLEY